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IF YOU'RE THINKING OF LIVING IN TRIBECA

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THERE is something desolate in the streets of Tribeca. They flow l ike gray rivers of cobblestone, their banks lined by warehouses. F ive years ago, cars were so rare that sea birds wheeled inland from t he river, unafraid.

The automobiles have come and the birds have gone, but a stroller can still pause on a fine spring Sunday and find himself utterly alone.

Tribecans like it this way. ''People come down and look at the warehouses and go 'yuck,' '' said Carole De Saram, a nine-year resident and former chairman of Community Board 1. ''But if you live down here, it's like having a little part of Manhattan all to yourself.''

Tribecans like it not only for the solitude but for the vibrancy it belies. They mobilize ferociously - hundreds of residents, thousands of dollars - in defense of their turf. They have waged successful battles against a move by the State Parole Board to Hudson Street, the building of a jail in neighboring Chinatown and the construction of an access ramp by Manhattan Community College through the middle of Washington Market Park. But they lost the battle against the fumigation of the Port Warehouses on Vestry Street with lethal methyl bromide gas.

They shop in gourmet food stores, brunch in restaurants with names like The Acute Cafe and Laughing Mountain, do their laundry at The Laundry Loft on Leonard Street and refer to anything north of Canal Street as ''uptown.''

''There is everything in the world down here,'' said John Perella, president of the South of Canal Association, a community group, ''and it never sleeps.''

Tribeca is an acronym for the Triangle Below Canal, about 40 square blocks bounded on the north by Canal Street, on the south by Chambers Street, on the west by the Hudson River and on the east by Church Street. (The city officially puts the southern border at Park Place, but residents insist on Chambers.)

Most Tribecans also scorn their appellation, although it sticks. ''The people who live here want to recall the historical nature of the area and refer to it as Washington Market,'' said Lois Mazzitelli, an urban designer with the City Planning Commission.

The Washington Market merchants, who began selling produce in 1880, have long since moved on to Hunts Point, but Tribeca remains the city's major butter, egg and cheese depot. On weekdays, the streets belong to the trucks and the air belongs to the Martinson's factory on Franklin Street, which sends passers-by into ecstasy by the daily roasting of coffee beans. On weekends, the trucks vanish and the air smells faintly of river.

Harmony is achieved by mixed-use zoning, which has legitimized most of the early, illegal loft-dwellers, protected existing businesses and preserved the industrial aura. And thus it is that instead of the proverbial front stoop, Tribecans have the loading dock.

Tribeca is co-op country, with the single, looming exception of Independence Plaza. The three 40-story apartment towers, which abut Manhattan Community College, cover three blocks from North Moore to Duane Streets between West and Greenwich Streets. They opened in November 1974 and languished, unrented, until October 1975, when Federal housing subsidies took effect for all but 88 of the 1,332 apartments.

''We were incapable of marketing the apartments at that time on an open-market rental,'' said Jerome Belson, president of Jerome Belson Associates, which manages the complex. ''Today we could. The area has dramatically improved.'' Rents are low - the nonsubsidized pay a maximum of $913 for three bedrooms -but the waiting list for apartments is almost five years long.

The complex has swallowed what once was Washington Street, where there was a row of elegant little Federal houses built from 1804 to 1828. In 1975, the houses, now privately owned, were trucked around the corner to Harrison Street and renovated, creating a courtly area amid the towers.

But it was not zoning or Independence Plaza or even the advent of thrice-weekly sanitation pickups three years or so ago that made Tribeca a legitimate neighborhood. It was a supermarket - the Food Emporium, to be precise, which opened in Independence Plaza last June. Before that, Miss De Saram said, ''I got used to drinking my coffee black because there were no stores around here.''

There was, of course, Earl Morgan's deli, on Hudson Street at Reade Street, which grew from take-out to small grocery as the middle class came to roost, and a few gourmet stores. But serious shopping demanded a weekly trek outside the neighborhood.

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The rest of Tribeca is a grid of warehouses and factory buildings, low and solid and old. The main floors are usually businesses, with lofts above - many renovated by early, illegal pioneers, whose clandestine lives included lugging bags of garbage to distant corners by moonlight. These residences took root in the early 1970's as artists spilled over from the saturated SoHo area, northeast of Tribeca; soaring real-estate values have limited Tribeca to higherincome tenants.

Most lofts are now sold prerenovated. They tend to cost less than SoHo lofts, according to Creative Leasing Concepts, a Tribeca realty concern, but prices depend on both the luxury of the loft and of the building. At 355 Greenwich Street, at Harrison Street, for example, 2 out of 10 condominiums - terraced penthouses priced at $185,000 (1,412 square feet) and $195,000 (1,305 square feet) - remain unsold. At 181 Hudson Street, at Vestry Place, luxury lofts complete with whirlpool baths will be priced from $196,000 (1,450 square feet) to $341,000 (2,240 square feet).

There are lofts for sale on Duane Street, and conversion is under way at 67 Hudson Street, at Jay Street, a small white building that got its start as New York Hospital. Sprouting out of the back of 67 Hudson is an overhead bridge spanning a tiny two-block-long alley called Staple Street and ending at what was once a two-story stable; patients were brought to the stable by carriage and trundled over the bridge into the hospital.

Rentals are rare. Only seven turned up in the classifieds of a recent Village Voice, three with fixture fees.

TRIBECA has two schools, the private Washington Market preschool in Independence Plaza and P.S. 234, at 334 Greenwich Street. A public high school is planned on an empty lot between Hubert and Beach Streets, near the river. There are 11 houses of worship serving the area, although many lie outside of the Tribeca boundaries, and there are, more than anything else, restaurants and galleries.

Cafes like Capsouto Freres and the Washington Street Cafe crowd their loading docks with tables, and the Odeon draws a lunchtime clientele from Midtown Manhattan. Galleries and artists have taken over several historical buildings, including the former Mercantile Exchange on Harrison Street, now owned by the nonprofit Dia Arts Foundation.

Tribeca, being north of Wall Street, had subway service long before it had residents to use it. The IRT Seventh Avenue and IND Sixth and Eighth Avenue lines both traverse the neighborhood.

The influx of artists and middle-class people seeking large living spaces into an area that only 10 years ago shut down at 5 P.M. also has drawn its share of the criminal element. The population in Community District 1 more than doubled between 1970 and 1980, rising to 16,322. In 1982, felonies jumped 2.3 percent in the First Precinct, while dropping 5.1 percent citywide. Some residents blame the discotheques that draw hundreds of drinkers and dancers to Tribeca on weekends; one, The Gotham, closed last year after a murder occurred on its premises.

But for the most part, said Phil Nuzzo, district manager of Community Board 1, ''this is a quiet area - you can walk down the street in the middle of the day and see no one there.'' Tribeca Gets Its First Real Park

On a rainy Sunday last month, Washington Market Park, a corner chunk of land at Chambers and Greenwich Streets, had its opening ceremony.

It was no minor dedication: Except for a tiny, verdant triangle on Duane Street, this is Tribeca's first real park. It is also, with courts for tennis, volleyball and basketball, a much-needed recreational center.

Enclosed with an ornate wrought iron fence, it has a gazebo in the center, gardens, grass and landscaping, all maintained at no cost to taxpayers by the Goodstein Construction Company in exchange for housing-development rights to a square-block plot of land across the street.

When Manhattan Community college announced plans to build a ramp across the land, Tribecan voices rose in protest. Peace was made in October 1980; the ramp was built on the west side of the park and the park itself was built for just under the $1.8 million allotted to its construction.

It is open every day until dark.

A version of this article appears in print on May 15, 1983, on Page 8008009 of the National edition with the headline: IF YOU'RE THINKING OF LIVING IN TRIBECA. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe